Advances in Industrial and Labor Relations, Vol. 17, Edited by David Lewin, Bruce Kaufman and Paul J. Gollan, Bingley, UK: Emerald Group Publishing, 2010, ISSN: 0742-6186; ISBN: 978-1-84950-932-9.

Many readers of this Journal are familiar with previous volumes in this series. The series typically presents an eclectic collection of papers on subjects in the field of industrial relations, broadly defined. One role of a reviewer of such a volume is to observe what the collection says about the state of the field. It is no secret that industrial relations as a subject is under attack. The very term is being abandoned by professional associations and academic units in favour of “employment relations.” Are these developments defensive manoeuvres to retain resources while the influence of unionism and collective bargaining are shrinking, or the adaptation of the field and its scholars to the changing economic, legal and political conditions within which industrial relations system operate? Evidence of the latter perspective is the chapter “Paradigm Shifts in Industrial Relations” by G. Steven McMillan and Debra L. Casey. The authors analyze citation patterns in industrial relations journals and articles to describe the field by its parameters and paradigms, i.e. the accepted sets of research questions and methodologies over 40 years, 1968-2007 and sub-divided into shorter time periods. Their statistical analysis shows that for most of that period, industrial relations research was dominated by applied labour economics. For example, of 64 clusters of research topics during 40 years, 12 of the first 15, most important, were economic. The last three clusters concerned worker representation and mobilization. The authors conclude that the field has moved toward employment relations in the last decade, with growing emphasis on the effects of human resource practices, workplace surveys, union and employer commitment and the like. This paper is sobering for scholars who see their field as “industrial relations.” Even more sobering is the lack of any new dominant paradigm to analyze employment relations in an era of union decline. Further evidence of adaptation in the field is the paper by Rebecca Givan, Ariel Avgar and Mingwei Liu who examined the relationship between human resources practices and organizational performance in British healthcare facilities. Not only is this chapter evidence of the expansion of industrial relations, it produced results counter to other research on HR practices. The authors tested the impact of HR practices on patient satisfaction, medical outcomes and employee reactions. They found, for instance, that high involvement human resources practices were negatively related to patient satisfaction and mixed effects on medical outcomes. However, appraisal functions were associated with positive effects on financial management. This model is more nuanced than many others and produced challenging conclusions. One lesson for hospital management might to be wary of adopting human resources practices developed in non-medial settings where fewer stakeholders are affected. Two papers illustrate the possible impact of international labour standards/corporate codes of conduct on labour practices in developing countries. Again, the incorporation of these external rules in the regulation of employment is relatively new to industrial relations, reflecting the expansion of international trade. One paper proposes an “institutional approach to labor-related human rights compliance.” This model treats international legal norms as complex institutions, i.e. composed of rules, enforcement, social norms and actual behaviours. The test cases are maquilas in Nicaragua and Honduras, and the behaviours are compulsory overtime. The author, Diane F. Frey, compares compliance with ILO standards that bind both countries. Unfortunately, the data on compliance is drawn from ILO committee reports, which are imprecise. Despite this drawback, the author found that institutions do matter. Workers in both countries are forced to work overtime, but Nicaraguans do so without apparent fear to dismissal for refusals. In Honduras, employer coercion to work overtime is much more common. The reasons for …